


There's Always a Price

by Thebeastisyou



Category: Glee
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebeastisyou/pseuds/Thebeastisyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Spirited Away AU. Kurt is Chihiro, Blaine lives in the house next to the one Kurt should have moved into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Always a Price

Blaine Anderson was ten years old when the Satos moved out of the house next door. They were an elderly couple with a small army of little yapping dogs, he was glad when the last moving truck pulled away. But now there was the question of who would come to replace them. Sitting at his bedroom window, Blaine would often look at the dark house, trying to imagine the new neighbors and the thousands of little ways they would change the place. Would they plant new flowers, put in shutters, paint the whole thing a different color? He hoped not. The blue of those walls had been soothing to him for as long as he could remember.

Weeks passed and the house stayed empty. He overheard his parents saying the new neighbors wanted to let their son finish the school year before they moved. They should be here by the end of the month. A son! It would be perfect. Now every time Blaine looked at that big blue house he imagined catching fire flies on the front lawn and sleeping under the stars. There would be someone to walk to school with, maybe even someone to sing with. He missed that more than he thought he would, since Cooper moved out. And it would probably be more fun with someone who didn't criticize and shove him out of the way during every routine.

School had been out for a few weeks and Blaine was reading listlessly on the front lawn. When he heard them, the low rumble of heavy trucks coming up the gravel roads, he shot up, book forgotten. He squinted and smiled wide, watching the vans pull into the driveway of the blue house. He spent the rest of the day on the porch with a jug of lemonade and several glasses, waiting to make a good impression (and hopefully a new friend). When no one but the movers had shown up by dinner, Blaine ended up sharing his pitcher with the movers instead, who thanked him and began to unpack the last of the boxes.

He caught snatches of their conversation as they loitered by their trucks, unsure where the family had gone. They argued about when they had seen them last, which road they may have taken by mistake, where they could be now. They ended up hiding the keys under the mat and leaving as the first stars started to appear overhead. Blaine watched them go back down that road with a hollow feeling in his stomach.

Summer passed and Blaine waited. He watched the house and wondered where his friend was, and felt betrayed for being abandoned like this. They were the talk of the neighborhood, no one could stop wondering about the family that disappeared. Policemen came some days, they even talked to Blaine once, not that he had anything to say. The Realtor would come every couple weeks and cut the grass, but didn't have time to do much else. He checked under the mat for the keys once, but guessed the Realtor must have grabbed them. Blaine watched the flowers die and the bushes start to take over the little garden. 

When school started back up again Blaine was glad for the distraction, until whispers started to follow him wherever he went. About the weird way he did his hair, about his family, and about the way he looked too long at the boys in his class. That's all it was, for that year and the next, whispers and loneliness but nothing more. Sometimes he would sit on the porch of the blue house and scratch at the peeling paint on days when he got overwhelmed. He wondered if the boy would have made fun of him too.

Late next year Blaine came out, and the bullying got worse. Now he was stuffed into closets (at least the kids had a sense of humor), his backpack was stolen and his locker vandalized. Once he found his bike smashed apart with the lock still intact around its neck. His teachers asked him what he thought would happen when he made such a spectacle of himself by coming out. His parents were uneasy and said their hands were tied, but they began looking for new schools where things might be better.

A few months later a boy named Daniel cornered him behind a sports equipment shed. There was fear in the boy's eyes, and then as he walked unsteadily closer, something else as well. Blaine smiled and opened his mouth, trying to say hello, but couldn't before Daniel lunged forward and kissed him. It was messy and unsettling and lasted just a few seconds before Blaine pulled back, shocked. Daniel was flushed and staring, so Blaine reached for his cheek and pulled him closer. Their next kiss was better.

The blue house continued to fall apart, there were large places where the paint had flaked off and the flowers had been crowded out by weeds and shrubs. Blaine sometimes brought Daniel to the backyard when they wanted to be alone. Not to talk, he didn't seem interested in that, but this was more than Blaine had ever hoped for, laying on his back with a boy warm on top of him under the Spring sun. They never got farther than making out before a neighbor spotted them and news spread quickly.

He was sent off to board at Dalton with his ribs still healing and his arm in a sling. He never heard from Daniel again. The new school was good for him, he was able to sing in the hallways and people wanted to talk to him for the first time in his life. He dated a few times but no one stuck, he kept himself busy with the Warblers and a job at the local coffee shop. On rainy days he would look out his window over the grounds and feel like something was missing. On those days he boxed or ran around the track until he was dripping with sweat. Anything to get rid of the emptiness.

After graduation he went back to his parents house, and when the dinner and presents were out of the way he found himself sipping champagne and wandering towards the blue house. The grass was high and the borders around the windows had lost almost all their color. He sat down on the porch and put down his glass. He could see where bees had began building a hive. The last he heard, the real estate company had been trying to put the house back on the market but couldn't. It was still owned by the missing family, and police had all but given up on them by now. He laid down with a sigh and felt the cool cement beneath him, wondering where his boy was tonight.

Visits over the years were few and far between, Blaine lived in the city now, had been engaged a few times (nothing quite worked out, he was too needy they said) and was focused too much on his career to see his parents and childhood home. He kept track of the deterioration of the blue house when he did come in though, always a little curious to see what would fall through next. One year a couple eaves came down and were left to rot on the lawn. He saw a fox burrowed under the porch a few years later. Most of the neighbors had moved away, and didn't know the story of the sad abandoned building. There was a new rumor going around that it was haunted. That always made Blaine laugh.

He was turning sixty when his father finally agreed to move into an apartment and put their house up for sale. They had gone ahead with the first moving van while Blaine finished packing the second. As he was hauling down a box of tupperware he noticed an old car creeping it's way up the street. He set the box at his feet and whistled. He hadn't seen a car like that in at least 40 years. The tiny silver thing groaned slightly and kept coming, past Blaine, until it settled in front of the blue house on the end. 

Blaine watched as a man stepped out, holding a baseball cap and scratching at his bald head. He walked toward the house as if he couldn't believe his eyes and then Blaine looked away as he saw a small head poke out of the back seat. A little boy, must have been around 10 years old, gazed up at the house and smiled while the man started to pace and mutter to himself.

"Hey, are you alright?" Blaine calls and the man stops pacing to look at him. "What are you looking for? Maybe I can help, I used to live around here,"

"The damn house is falling apart!"

"Well no one's lived here for about 50 years, the rumor today is that it's haunted," He smiles but it drops when the man looks even more distressed.

"The Realtor said it was in great condition, said the couple who lived here kept it in good shape,"

"I think maybe you pulled onto the wrong street, this house hasn't been on the market for years. There was a family that was supposed to move in but they never showed up, can you believe that?" The man just stands gaping at him. Blaine hadn't noticed, but while they were talking the little boy had come out and sat resting on the sagging porch, the last of the sun lighting his hair. He still had that serene smile on his face that makes Blaine catch his breath. What a strange child.

"Well, I hope you find the right house," Blaine says as the man pulls out a piece of paper and frantically checks it against the address, the brass shining dully in the sunset. Leaving the man to his business, Blaine finished loading the van and took one last look as he put his car in reverse. At his parent's house, now so much smaller than he remembered it, and at the house next door. The man and boy sit on the porch together looking exhausted and lost, but they don't seem willing to listen to what he has to say. So Blaine backs up and gives a little wave, which the boy returns, and begins the long drive back home.


End file.
